I keep finding more and more amazing photos from my errant youth that I’d still never managed to get scanned
in after all these years. Irritatingly, there are a few of my favorites that are still eluding me, though perhaps I’ll
just have to do another post like this at some point when they decide to pop up. They’re my favorites, alas!

This was me at maybe 15 or 16? It was for a fashion show at the old Club 404. I was total monster-child jail bait, who spent
most of my time scampering around in the woods on drugs wishing I wasn’t human, poring over Elfquest and Sandman comics
and Storm Constantine’s Wraeththu trilogy. I made my outfit in five minutes out of electrical tape, eyeliner, wire and black tulle.
Oh, and a thong. Heaven forbid that should I ever spawn a girl-child as naughty as I was! With any luck, I’ll end up with a Saffy.

(photo by Monte McCarter)
At the tender age of barely 17, I became the armed spokesmodel for FringeWare Review’s book catalogue.
This involved posing in my underpants and various getups made of rubber and dollparts with books and guns.
Real guns. That’s totally an actual Uzi or Tech-9 or whatever the hell, too. As you do, when you are a teen goth.

My best friend and first (gay, middle-school) boyfriend, Milé Boban and I in the high-school cafeteria, being spooky.

(Photo by Milé Boban)
Baby vamps reign supreme. This is maybe my favorite picture of Pandora and I, ever. Wild goth children!
Moments before this photo was taken, I had snatched that martini glass off the table of a fancy sidewalk cafe,
and ran shrieking down the street with it. I was obsessed with the idea of martinis, though I had never had one.

Dressing up before our second ever excursion to the Rocky Horror Picture Show. She was 11, and I was 13.
It’s a marvel our parents ever let us out of our rooms at all. I remember wailing and telling my stepmom that
I’d DIE if I wasn’t allowed to go out to the midnight showing of Rocky Horror at the crappy mall movie theater.

Sassing it up in the junior high parking lot. Brash and invincible as only baby goth warrior girls can be.

My shaved sides and purple dye growing out, brown eyeliner for lipstick, a pore-squeezer for an earring.
With my old friend Blake at our alternative high-school that was a haven for goths, gays, teen moms and wastrels.

It was also where feral children raised by wolves ended up. We were allowed to smoke cigarettes and go barefoot.
I wrote elaborately researched papers about my interests: alien abduction, Freemasons, Ecstasy, and Absinthe.

(Photo by Milé Boban)
Gothic Marilyn at 15. One thing about being a goth in Texas – no one ever could take themselves or each othertoo seriously down here. Something about the heat, or the hicks (Beers, Steers, and Queers, anyone?), but I really
do think that Southern goths seem to be less afraid of cracking their porcelain pancaked faces when busting into a big grin.

10 comments

Ack you are KILLING ME with these posts. You should make ANNIE show you her babygoth photos! She and Mykle were so extreme. I have always worn 2700 colors patterned garments at once, so I have a hard time being a goth purist.

these pictures are incredible. im 28, was totally goth as a teenager in houston. really snotty about it too, really loathed anyone who said they were goth and would even consider owning jeans or wearing t shirts (that weren’t of approved obscure bands) in public. now, i do think about the comical element of being in so much makeup and tulle and velvet in 100 degree weather. I think it gave me a good tolerance for hot weather though. so now i can walk around in a suit in the summer in DC.

Ah, I would have been completely in awe of you at that age. Growing up, I was always a bit too much of a nice girl (who couldn’t give up her henna-red hair for black) to successfully be a teen goth, but I did gravitate toward the tribe and hover awkwardly at its periphery. I wrote tragic poetry in my diary, fantasized about living in the Crime and The City Solution scene from “Wings of Desire,” nearly fainted at a Nick Cave concert, and for my 16th birthday, my best friend gave me a “Complete Melancholy Pack” including a black lace slip, a tiny bottle of Amaretto and a Bad Seeds single. She knew me the best.

ah ah, great post… when i see that i regret a lot hav’ent photos of my teen goth era… Very good choice of interest , i can add ancient Egypt magic, Skulls&bones and all secret society, vampires, outsider art and Frida Kahlo and SM / fetish. My favporite band was Die Form. I was totally in love with. And one of the best day is when they wrote me back. But Beers, steers and queers is avery fucking good song… i still listening revolting cocks but also Alien Sex Fiend, Wumpscut, Suicide commando and other indus / ebm “oldies “… Thanks for sharing with us your teen goth photos, its recall me so much !